Dog babies, big bets, and Oracle and Microsoft discuss a deal to rent servers from each other

The United States and its allies have dismantled a major cyberespionage system that it said Russia’s intelligence service had used for years to spy on computers around the world, the Justice Department announced today. The New York Times has more here.

Oracle and Microsoft recently discussed an unusual agreement to rent servers from each other if either company runs out of computing power for cloud customers that use large-scale artificial intelligence, according to The Information. A deal would help the two rival cloud providers meet surging demand for servers that can run AI software, which has caused a shortage.

Google I/O is nearly upon us. You can watch it live here.

Instead of cobbling together a disjointed ecosystem of tools and vendors, forward-thinking venture capital firms have realized that a technology-enabled fund administrator can power everything from their fund accounting and investor services to their investor portal and CRM, bridging the gap between finance and investor relations teams. Meet Juniper Square: the first modern administrator built for sophisticated venture capital firms.

Sound Ventures, the eight-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.,-based venture firm led by general partners Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Effie Epstein, announced a new $240 million AI fund just last week.

Turns out half of it is already invested in the three companies that it announced at the time that it rolled out the fund: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stability.AI.

Further, says Epstein, the team plans to invest in just six companies altogether, they aren't setting aside money for follow-on rounds, and backing rival companies is not, in the case of this fund, a deterrent.

The strategy flies in the face of traditional venture investing tenets, but the highly concentrated nature of its AI fund is a reflection of just how few power players Sound Ventures anticipates will emerge in a world remade by AI, including because of the technical talent required and the capital needed to cover compute costs. (OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously described these as "eye watering.")

We talked with Epstein earlier today about the new, high-risk, potentially high-reward strategy of Sound, which is separately investing an early-stage fund that it closed in 2021. Our chat, below, has been edited lightly for length.

You said last week that you think just a handful of players are going to emerge as the victors here, given the talent and capital required to support these foundational model layers. You've backed three already -- OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stability.AI. Will you sink more into these same companies as they raise subsequent rounds? How highly concentrated will your AI fund be?

So the fund will be quite a concentrated portfolio, and it'll be concentrated across six to seven positions.

That's wild. So, like, half the fund is gone already?

That's probably a safe estimate. We've invested in three companies already -- we're not going to disclose how much we invested per company --  but if you do the math, it's about six positions, and three of them have already been made, so that's pretty accurate.

Which company has attracted the most capital? Is it OpenAI?

We're not going to disclose the amounts across each company but I will tell you the fund came together quickly from a fundraising perspective [thanks to the] work that we've done over the last 15 plus years [including when Kutcher and Oseary were investing their personal funds as angel investors]. And when you think of OpenAI specifically, Ashton and Sam [Altman] have known each other for over a decade. So we have fostered these incredible relationships with  exceptional founders . .  and built a track record. And so that's why we were able to get quite significant allocations when you look at these companies, in quite competitive rounds.

The team at Anthropic used to work at OpenAI and is ultimately trying to compete with OpenAI. Was there any pushback about your approach?

More here.

UVeye, a seven-year-old Israeli startup that uses a combination of computer vision and machine learning to quickly and accurately inspect vehicles for mechanical issues, raised a $100 million Series D round at an approximate valuation of $800 million. Hanaco VC was the deal lead, while previous investors GM Ventures, CarMax, W.R. Berkley Corporation, and F.I.T. Ventures also participated. TechCrunch has more here.

Blockworks, a five-year-old, New York-based media company that covers cryptocurrency for professionals, has raised $12 million at a $135 million post-money valuation, it tells Axios. 10T Holdings, a mid-to-late-stage growth equity fund, led the round, joined by Framework Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on blockchain investments, and Santiago Santos, a crypto investor. Santos co-hosts a podcast with Blockworks cofounder Jason Yanowitz. More here.

Firmbase, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that has built a financial planning and analysis platform, raised a $12 million round led by S Capital, with participation from Meron Capital. Calcalist has more here.

Liquidity Group, a five-year-old New York startup that uses its tech to make decisions on deploying debt facilities ranging from $5 million to $100 million, raised a $40 million round at a $1.4 billion valuation. MUFG led the transaction. TechCrunch has more here.

Prewave, a six-year-old startup based in Vienna, Austria, that helps companies monitor their supply chains, including the impact of externalities such as earthquakes, floods, political unrest, lawsuits, or worker strikes, raised a $20 million "Series A+" round from Creandum. The company has raised a total of $30.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

8fig, a three-year-old Israeli startup whose platform enables online sellers to manage their supply chains, raised a $40 million Series B round and $100 million in debt. Koch Disruptive Technologies was the deal lead, with participation from previous investors Battery Ventures, Localglobe, Hetz Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. The company has raised a total of $196.5 million. Calcalist has more here.

BurnerPage, a two-year-old New York startup that says it is using AI to improve web page conversion performance, raised a $2 million pre-seed round led by LDV Capital, with Freestyle Capital also tagging along. More here.

CloudBurst Technologies, a New York startup that provides real-time monitoring and cyber threat intelligence tools to help track fraud in the cryptocurrency market, raised a $3 million seed round led by Strategic Cyber Ventures, with Coinbase Ventures and Bloccelerate also chipping in. ET CIO.com has more here.

Farmless, a nine-month-old, Netherlands-based producer of non-animal-based protein alternatives, says it has raised a €1.2 million in pre-seed equity funding Revent, Nucleus Capital and Possible Ventures, HackCapital, Sustainable Food Ventures, and VOYAGERS Climate-Tech Fund, among others. TechCrunch has more here.

GPTZero, a startup founded last December based in Princeton, NJ, that has built a tool that can detect text from a variety of AI models, such as Google Bard, Facebook’s LLaMa, and OpenAI’s GPT-3 and GPT-4, raised a $3.5 million seed round from Uncork Capital, Neo, and Altman Capital. Forbes has more here.

Mother Science, a two-year-old skincare company founded by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger and wife Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, a violinist who earlier taught high school physics and chemistry, says it has raised $6.2 million in total venture capital (most of it in a seed round last November). Female Founders Fund led the outfit's late 2022 seed round. Other investors in the company include: defy.vc, Founders Fund, KarpReilly, H Venture Partners, NewBound Ventures, BFG Partners, and Tuesday Capital, among others. Axios has more here.

Olyns, a four-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., whose containers sit at the entrance to retail locations and provide beverage container recycling to consumers and advertising to brands, raised a $4 million Series A round. Vanedge Capital led the deal. The company has raised a total of $5 million. Recycling Today has more here.

Optery, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps consumers remove their personal information from the clutches of data brokers, raised $2.7 million in additional seed funding. led by Bayhouse Capital, with Global Founders Capital, Goodwater Capital, Pioneer Fund, Soma Capital, TRAC, and Y Combinator also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.

Pudgy Penguins, a two-year-old crypto startup that creates intellectual property around NFTs, such as live events, new ways for owners to monetize and utilize their tokens, and physical goods bearing the IP (e.g. books and toys), raised a $9 million seed round led by 1kx and including Big Brain Holdings, Kronos Research, and CRIT Ventures. CoinDesk has more here.

Sensydia, an eight-year-old, L.A.-based startup that has developed a portable, point-of-care hemodynamic measurement platform that assesses cardiac conditions, has raised $8 million in new funding from Orlando Health Ventures, with participation from Colle Capital, Frontier Venture Capital, and others. More here.

Stella, a three-year-old, Chicago-based startup that offers an uninsured treatment protocol for post traumatic stress, anxiety, stress, depression, traumatic brain injury, and Long COVID (it also offers ketamine infusions and therapy), has raised $7 million in funding from Sterling Partners. Axios has more here.

Unity SCM, a three-year-old Israeli startup that helps its customers tie together supply chain data, so that customers know where each shipment is and when inventory will be ready, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Vertex Ventures Israel, with participation from UpWest and Vertex Ventures US. The company has raised a total of $13.2 million. Calcalist has more here.

Why do more than 90% of angel investments end up as a total loss? It’s commonly due to an unprofessionalized approach to early-stage due diligence. Don’t review another pitch deck without reading GoingVC’s Complete Guide to Angel Investing Due Diligence. It’s exactly what angels need to build a diligence process as robust as Silicon Valley’s best VCs. Grab your copy here.

Germany’s Software AG rebuffed a fresh bid of at least €2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) from Bain Capital, choosing to maintain support for a lower takeover offer from existing backer Silver Lake Management. The 54-year-old multinational software corporation develops enterprise software for business process management, integration, and big data analytics. Two weeks ago, Silver Lake offered to buy the company for the €2.2 billion ($2.4 billion). More here.

Mobvoi, a Chinese AI company and smart device maker, has selected banks for a Hong Kong IPO that could raise about $200 million to $300 million, according to Bloomberg. The Beijing-based firm, which last month debuted its own AI large language model, is working with China International Capital Corp. and China Merchants Bank International to prepare for the first-time share sale, says the outlet. More here.

General Motors has hired Apple executive Mike Abbott to head up its software division as its ramps up its efforts to sell “software-defined vehicles” that offer a wide array of capabilities. Abbott, the former vice president of engineering for Apple’s cloud services division, was previously general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers focused on investments in mobile and cloud computing. TechCrunch has more here.

Right-wing personality Tucker Carlson announced today that he will relaunch his program on Twitter, which he praised as the only remaining large free-speech platform in the world after Fox News fired him late last month. NPR has more here.

All Raise’s interim CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner has now dropped the “interim,” according to the nonprofit’s blog post. Hendrix Buckner joined the organization, which supports women founders and funders, as chief of staff early last year and stepped in as interim CEO in January following the resignation of former CEO Mandela S.H. Dixon. TechCrunch has more here.

A new biography of the Zappos executive Tony Hsieh depicts him as a narcissist and an addict who tossed around half-baked ideas and rarely saw them through, says the New Yorker. More here.

Ishan Wahi, a 32-year-old former Coinbase employee, was sentenced today to two years in prison for his role in what federal prosecutors called the first-ever insider-trading case involving cryptocurrency. Wahi previously pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for tipping off his brother and a friend to confidential information that he gained at his job at the crypto exchange. The WSJ has more here.

Touchdown Ventures, an outfit that partners with corporations to manage their venture capital programs, is looking to bring aboard a senior associate in San Francisco.

During the peak of the housing boom, home prices surged in practically every corner of the U.S. Now, the housing market is split down the middle of the country, with prices still rising in many parts of the Midwest, South and Northeast while sliding in Western states.

Spotify has removed tens of thousands of songs from AI music start-up Boomy, ramping up policing of its platform amid complaints of fraud across streaming services.

There have been more than 200 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. BBC News has more here.

AI cameras are being set up on some UK highways to stop drivers from throwing trash out of their car windows.

AI startup Anthropic wants to write a new constitution for safe AI. 

How to delete your data from ChatGPT.

Ten things that Jeremy Strong of "Succession" can't live without.

Comedy is in their (identical) DNA.

Is there such a thing as Ozembic body?

"To you, I am a dog, but here I am the baby." 

Ten seriously good boxed wines, according to a respected wine critic.

Interior decorators Cortney and Robert Novogratz, known for television shows such as Bravo’s “9 By Design,” just listed a Manhattan townhouse that they bought in 2019 for $8.5 million (they're asking for $30 million). It's the couple's 10th townhouse project in New York.

These five dealmaking benchmarks will reveal how your firm's performance stacks up against the competition. Explore Affinity's infographic today.